Flowers of Summer

I love that our 12-year-old loves to photograph flowers. His photography prowess on his weightless iPod is fast exceeding mine on my heavy Canon. He has a ripe portrait studio in his garden plot of catnip, lilies, lupin, lavender, oregano, snapdragons, a maple tree he nurtured from a seed, a pieris bonsai he prunes, and several other plants he vigilantly tends. Wherever he goes, he adds flower bulk to his iPod albums.

Our younger son is equally appreciative of his garden’s alliums, hollyhocks, lilies, dozens of succulent varieties – one pot of which he entered and won 1st place in the San Juan County Fair last year, and various other prized possessions. I’ll never forget his 5th birthday request – to walk around Eastsound and collect as many flowers’ seeds as possible.

I don’t remember appreciating floral beauty and the plant world as much as our boys do when I was a child; then again, I didn’t grow up on Orcas Island. Well, one exception is the time I picked all our many neighbors’ flashiest flowers and replanted them in our yard. It was my only childhood spanking.

Enjoy the buffet of color, courtesy of our older son, Evan, taken in our garden and beyond…